The Art of Survival

This chapter examines the underacknowledged contributions of Maria Dominguez, a community muralist, painter, and arts educator, to the Nuyorican art movement in the 1980s. Focused on the Nuyorican Lower East Side, the chapter analyzes three projects undertaken by Dominguez between 1983 and 1987. The projects, including the mural Baile Bomba, relief sculpture Gentrification, and exhibition Contemporaneos, resisted the multilayered effects of gentrification by challenging classification, aestheticization, and separation mechanisms. Baile Bomba celebrated the Afro–Puerto Rican tradition of bomba, combating cultural erasure through public art. Gentrification, a sculpture, subverted the “empty space” narrative of gentrification by highlighting the vibrant life of the neighborhood. Dominguez’s countervisual force countered the erasure caused by gentrification and asserted the agency of Nuyorican culture. Through her artwork, Dominguez resisted gentrification’s attempt to redefine the neighborhood and culture, affirming the presence and identity of the marginalized community.